from Hacker News

Tesla falls after Commerce secretary recommends buying stock

by alamortsubite on 3/20/25, 1:39 PM with 133 comments

• by jampa on 3/20/25, 2:12 PM

  People are saying Tesla stock is falling due to Musk, but he has been an asshole publically since the Thailand incident where he called the rescue diver a pedophile.

  It is falling because it is a bad stock with no ground in reality: it is clear that Tesla has lost all its positive momentum. When was the last time we heard about Tesla delivering something exciting?

  Meanwhile, BYD just announced their 1000V platform this week, God's eye FSD for every car last month (and they are already selling those in China). On the other hand, Tesla has just been promising the world and delivering nothing but more promises and pushing deadlines.

  Take that last demo they made in Universal Studios. Everything was faked, the robot was human-controlled, and the FSD was in a controlled environment with a human in the background, ready to intervene. Now look at that P/E. It sits at >100 in a company that is not growing anymore, 2x-3x more valuable than Toyota. You really can't justify it.

• by submeta on 3/20/25, 2:14 PM

  Tesla‘s valuation was partly stemming from what was projected on Musk: A whiz-„kid“ who was treated like he found cure for cancer. Many quickly realized that he could not deliver (a self driving car) or a refuge in space for when humanity will be killed by a mega-asteriod. Slowly he demystifies himself by coming up with crude far right ideas and by not delivering.

• by ko_pivot on 3/20/25, 1:57 PM

  Whether you support Elon/DOGE or not, pretty wild to shred a $1T consumer brand like Elon has.

• by josefritzishere on 3/20/25, 1:57 PM

  How is this not illegal for a government official to reccomend buying stock in a company run by another government official? This is naked corruption.

• by AnimalMuppet on 3/20/25, 2:12 PM

  Wow. Cabinet members are openly shilling stocks now? Stocks of well-connected government insiders?

  The US is acting like a third-world country.

• by jqpabc123 on 3/20/25, 2:12 PM

  "It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again."

  Proof on multiple levels that the primary skills of this administration are con artistry and fascism --- which are more or less the same .

  The PE ratio of the typical auto manufacturer is around 10 or less.

  GM, Ford, Toyota --- all less than 10.

  The PE of Tesla is 115 --- and they sell fewer cars than any of the above.

  By any reasonable measure for an auto manufacturer, Tesla is outrageously overpriced. And before someone drops Musk's line that Tesla is something other than an auto manufacturer, allow me to point out 90% of Tesla earnings come from the manufacture and sale of autos.

  ETTD --- Everything Trump Touches Dies. Tesla is working to become the latest example.

• by dkjaudyeqooe on 3/20/25, 2:08 PM

  Expect this post, and any even obliquely critical of Musk or Trump, to be flagged into oblivion.

  I've tried to not be cynical but it's bleedingly obvious that there are a group of Musk/Trump supporters here flagging these posts.

  Various discussions claim that it's political (and thus "off topic") posts that are flooding HN but there has been very few appearing on the front page, even though they're sunk out of view these posts attract many upvotes and comments.

  There are all sorts of off-topic and incidental posts on HN and that's always been the case. Now there is aggressive censorship of one type of post. Just skipping or hiding posts that you're not interested in is not enough apparently.

  There is not much that can be done about it, dang has essentially shrugged, which is fine. But please lets not pretend its not happening and that it's not absolutely repugnant.

• by duxup on 3/20/25, 2:09 PM

  Peak cronyism from the current administration.

• by orwin on 3/20/25, 4:13 PM

  Alfred Hugenberg didn't end well either, even when he supported the winning side.

• by seper8 on 3/20/25, 2:09 PM

  What a banana republic the USA has turned into.

  Literal oligarchy happening out in the open, in front of our eyes.

  Waiting for the delays for Austin robotaxi to be announced, then more red for Tesla.

• by dkjaudyeqooe on 3/20/25, 2:15 PM

  Whatever you think about Musk or Trump, it's very strange that government officials are pushing each other's stock. It's a hard sell you'd expect from a boiler room:

  "It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again."

  "I mean, who wouldn't invest in Elon Musk? You gotta be kidding me."

• by chris_wot on 3/20/25, 2:02 PM

  In Australia we have mandatory voting. The worst we got was Scott Morrison, and that was pretty awful. But he isn’t patch on your current president.

  If you had mandatory voting (and a sane polling day) you’re likely have a better represented Congress and Senate.

  Instead, you have Trump.

• by fullshark on 3/20/25, 2:01 PM

  Another new low for this administration.

• by iJohnDoe on 3/20/25, 9:28 PM

  > Last week President Trump held a public showcase of Tesla's cars at the White House. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/13/tesla-trump-white-house-mus...

  What the heck?!? Has a president ever done anything like this before?

  The only good thing is that while the president was selling cars is that he wasn't doing any other boneheaded thing at that moment. Let's keep the president selling cars.

• by zamalek on 3/20/25, 2:03 PM

  So people who invade the seat of power are good people worthy of pardons, and people peacefully protesting are terrorists? I thought that "fascist" may have been slightly misused prior to this, but investigating peaceful protest crosses a very serious line.

• by sz4kerto on 3/20/25, 2:01 PM

  There's not much to see here I believe - Tesla's valuation is approximately where it was before the election, and that's generally true for tech stocks (Tesla generally moves with the NASDAQ). It made a big swing in the last month, but the news around this is classic post-hoc narrative.

  Edit: I meant the crashing valuation, not this particular news, apologies for the confusion. I do think that government officials promoting stocks is a terrible precedent to set.

• by unsupp0rted on 3/20/25, 2:00 PM

  Well yeah, it's being shorted left and right. That's not because the intrinsic value has changed, except in the sense that people don't like Musk more and more every week.

  That won't matter much next time Tesla releases some innovation that is 1 or 2 levels better than the rest of the market.

  Musk's companies are the epitome of "be so good they can't ignore you, even if they hate you".